How Interior Design Professionals Choose On-Wall Decoration - Selecting Artwork

When interior design professionals say "on-wall decoration," they normally mean flat objects that may be hung on a wall. This covers photos, graphics, platters, mountings, reliefs and many other categories. London is a splendid locale in which to work as an interior designer because it is so easy to find fabulous on-wall decorative options from the busy artisan set, who frequently exhibit in galleries and warehouses across the capital.


When I think of on-wall decoration, I most frequently think of pictures. I often tell my interior design team that pictures are critical to making a residence feel personal. Having said that, I will caution that suboptimal placement of pictures can all but destroy even a highly effective interior design scheme. I note that this can be particularly problematic in some of the more cramped London flats. I tell my clients that there is a mental checklist that needs to be filled in - equally applicable for digital graphic prints as for historic sepia-tinted photographs. One of the top rules that I have my team keep in mind at our London interior design consultancy is about "relational picture hanging." By this I mean that everything on the wall should echo or reinterpret another feature in the design. Junior interior designers sometimes fail to put enough thought into this, and the result often looks "accidental" - which of course would be highly unsatisfactory! When I put together interior design concepts, I try to use the colour or content of pictures to make a connection to bookcases, panels, couches or curtains... or even to built-in elements of interest, including dado rails, coving or cabinetry - any of which can be highly fascinating in some of London's more historic period buildings.


I try to avoid placing on-wall decoration in a symmetric configuration (for example, centred on a couch or dresser) because this would risk making the interior design concept feel slightly pedestrian and mundane.


In London, we know all too well that drizzle and cooler temperatures are not unusual during much of the year. As a result, interior designers in the capital will regularly select more cheerful pictures when they choose on-wall decoration. I place significant emphasis on clustering images that are somehow connected to each other. For example, my London Interior Design team might position a series of country scenes near to each other on the wall, or they will take the same approach for pictures of historic factories or waterways. Some of the best-known London interior design consultancies will also cluster on-wall decorative elements that share the same colour concepts or mounting styles.


With the next article in this series on how interior design professionals choose on-wall decoration, I will turn to the hands-on details of how to physically secure pictures to a wall.



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